Mysterious Gold Seller Is Back With Periodic High Volume Slams, Fails To Break Market

Unlike on the two prior occasions when the "mysterious" (coughBIScough) gold seller sold so much gold he briefly broke the gold market not once but twice, this morning's concerted gold selling episodes, which briefly took gold to a three month low, were unable to obliterate the entire bid stack (at least for now) and crush enough liquidity to force the CME to announce another "stop logic" 10-20 second trading halt.

However, there were some other peculiarities surrounding today's now recurring morning gold battering (which as we noted in a market where the CME no longer supervises any and all manipulation, were and are certain to continue). Specifically, what is curious is that starting at 3:48 am Eastern Time, Nanex found "six instances (there may be more) of 1 second periods in Gold futures with a high number of trades (700 or more)." As those who have been covering our coverage of HFT manipulation will note, these are precisely the kinds of momentum ignition, and not rational price discovery, events that seek to manipulate prevailing prices lower (or higher). The good news is that as everyone knows, aside from equity, electricity, FX, libor, aluminum, and credit derivative markets (in just the case of JPM) gold is never manipulated: Blythe Masters promised. So there's that.

These are the specific volume spiking intervals that Nanex has noted in the latest overnight trading session of note.

03:48:04

04:46:46

05:30:42

07:43:22

08:43:26

09:43:29

As Nanex further observes, "Note that the last 3 are almost exactly 1 hour and 3 seconds apart. That's not likely a coincidence."

I believe gold isn't the solf underbelly of the bankers - gold is 2nd derivative of the true underbelly which is now the T-bill market...an exodus here is the ignition switch which would start the hyper-monetization and send derivatives and PM's on their way.

"What if a government that had trillions of dollars of worhtless US currency decided to manipulate the market so they could buy up cheaper gold???? HELLO CHINA"

Good point. I dealt a lot with double-crossing Chinese
and they might act stupid like everybody else but they do hedge their bets. You can be their best customer but they will still try to screw you by offering your competitor a better deal just for the sake of hedging their bets.

What if they buy most of their gold directly at the source now ? They surely would be in on having paper prices manipulated downwards. Like any other serious strategic gold buyer for that matter.

The more you smack down paper-gold, the more gold also gets converted from "Unallocated Pool Accounts" to Bullion and Coins -- with deliveries sent to us or to our many secure (non-US) storage locations.

FYI, "Unallocated Pool Accounts" are price-insensitive, as their owners pay only the incremental cost of converting to Bullion/Coin. And the smart ones do this before there is a panic, or before you decided to confiscate said Pools of Gold.

When you have access to a printing press for unlimited funds you never run out of ammo. I'm sure that if somebody wanted to take delivery they would either get a stern talking to (hey take it from us,you don't want to do that for your own good), or their delivery would be over a period of years.

If China really wanted to buy as much gold as possible for as long as possible wouldn't they use a method of periodically slamming the price and exploring for stop losses? Be on the bid while also hitting the bid. I mean they couldn't corner the market in a year or five but over decades...

Awkward observation: some of these manipulation events are in the up direction. Look carefully at the charts.

It is definitely manipulation of some kind, because responsible "real money" flow trading does not cut through the bid (or offer) stack like a light saber as a matter of practice. Everybody knows this.

But are there more than one actor here?

Whoever "they" are, they have 2 characteristics:

1) approximately limitless leverage and demonstrated insensitivity to near term loss risk. (So institutional, and strategic.)

2) untouchable. (If a regime enemy, e.g. the Koch brothers, traded like this, it would leak like a sieve and they'd be frogmarched. Just sayin'.)

Is there more than one entity that fits this description? And do they have different ends? Or is it vol itself that is being manipulated, not a specific price trend?

That is the sad part. maybe not never, but we need a grand mal seizure crash. When it comes to silver the market is so small, that any intrepid billionaire could theoretically gobble up enough physical to make things go bonkers. Nevermind a sovereign country. China for example could probably destroy the market 6 months if they wanted to. You want delivery? How about a premium of freshly printed money or a suicide?

Long term I know why I hold metals, Short term, the thought of bankers and politicians wearing a blindfold and smoking a cigarette along with a full belly of rage keeps me going.

I'm not convinced they are out of ammo. Even with the price this low relative to the past 18 months, they're still trying to pushing it lower.

My suspicion is the algo is working with a limit on how hard it can hit. It's not working, so someone with a higher pay grade is going to have to authorize it to hit harder, April style. Right now they're using the cheapest methods they can (slamdowns at lower volumes in a thin market overnight), so the next move would be higher volumes hits overnight, and the last resort hitting at max volume with the same timing as April.

It's amazing to me how hard they're working on slamming gold (and the lack of regulatory enforcement, of course.) This is why I think a bigger slam is coming -- for whatever reason this is really, really important to someone with deep pockets.

I agree, though, if buyers stand for delivery the slam-downs will ultimately turn into what changes the game into a winning one for physical longs. We might have a wait or a scary roller coaster ride before this happens.

It's weird because both players think they're playing the same game, when in reality they're using two different sets of rules.

The Western central banks are playing a short-term game, with rules set by Volcker, to not let gold make fiat "look bad." They're thinking this is a normal 5-year business cycle, basically a short term intervention done for PR purposes. Gold is an archaic relic to them, MMT is the new gold, and due to MMT "this time it's different." The Fed also has an incentive for low gold if in fact they sold Germany's holdings.

PBOC (and I'd argue Russia) are playing a long-term game, positioning for the next reserve currency, so they want to maximize their accumulation at the lowest possible cost.

The wildcard is Western central bank commitment. If they were truly committed, they'd flush gold into the system when supply gets tight, and Germany wouldn't give a crap about repatriation. This isn't the case. My suspicion we'll see slamdowns and downward price pressure for quite some time, and then when the supply is completely exhausted, the next major currency sniffle triggers a moonshot. All this could take years or just weeks.

If I were Germany I would sell my thousands of tonnes of
gold I will never get back because it ain`t there
and buy back the real thing on what remains of an open market and physical supply with the paper proceeds.

i posted this indicator on here several months ago (chaikin money flow 5 period). it seems to give clear indication as to when the various slams will happen. it went off like a rocket just before the april smash, and still seems to give good indication as to whats ahead.

drops in volume always seem to precipitate the largest downward moves

Seek:

look at the volumes since the late June bottom. i wonder whats going to hapen to the vol when the price gets back down around the $1200 mark?

personally i anticipate it will go through the roof, and we can expect another royal smashdown to the $1000 mark. this could be before the end of the month.

the only conclusion i can make from this (volume based) indicatior, is that they have to turn off the algos temporarily to see what 'real' actors are present, and what the price action is like without the HFT presence.

I think your read is the same as mine, they keep at the slamming -- but at some point that will trigger the physical market separation once supplies are exhausted. I'm sure they'd like to slam it to $1000 if they could, but I am not sure if that's achivable.

The CME data has been interesting since it's shown a major slowing in gold leaving warehouses. I don't buy it -- there must be some cash settlement happening or buyers are going outside CME to get it now. When I put my foil hat on, I start wondering if they're not pulling physical out of CME so they can keep manipulating paper prices lower while sucking the physical supply up elsewhere.

It's possible in the very short endgame (meaning months to the big reset) gold sales gets banned. Bans attract attention and drive demand and are a last-ditch effort that has never really worked.

I think it'll actually be a low priority when they lose control, and my guess in any confiscated gold will wind up in the hands on low-level government types before it ever reaches the national treasury.

Delivery maybe ain't even be an issue. If the Fed are behind all these paper shorting op's, then their counter parties and partners in crime ( JPM/GS ) may well be in cahoots with them and indefinitely defer delivery. Is this a possibility ?

Absolutely, as long as the goal is purely price manipulation. I commented above that would could be seeing collusion to basically protect trades on the CME to keep the manipulation going.

The side effect is still that physical gets sucked out of the system, just from sources other than CME warehouses. This coupld explain the rumors of GLD refusing redemptions last month with no major price moves seen on the CME.

I'd just go with the default assumption that all markets are heavily manipulated at this point, and nothing can be trusted.

Eventually they will start doing it in the other direction and actually make some money. There is a lot of easy win between here and 1600 once they decide 90 days of fighting a losing battle is enough.

Goldman is a good/bad omen on this. On one hand, they do have the clout to actually be in the know and get it right. On the other, it is not the first time their prop desk goes the opposite way for a quick buck at the expense of anyone taking their advice. It's 50/50 really.

China cannot get all the gold it wants...or it would have it already. There is still890 tons at GLD. China could sell a few treasuries and buy it all in a day...but apparently they cannot. Physiacal is not that easy to get.

Apparently they don't want to ... it's silly to assume that every trading fund in the world is in some giant conspiracy to hide failure to delivers. You're talking about a conspiracy involving 10s of thousands of traders ...

If there was a play to be made to get paid off by requesting delivery the market would be doing it at such a speed the fed couldn't hit the button fast enough. If black helicopters and MIBs came to your door if you request too big a delivery of gold some trader would have spilled that by now.

Warren Buffet cleaned up a fortune by cornering the silver market in 1997 - 98. It cost him about 2% of his fortune to pull it off. No one had to know it was happening, or cooperate except his broker, Phibro.

I'm saying the market can be manipulated, has been manipulated and will be manipulated. Sometimes this involves standing for delivery of large numbers of contracts, AKA cornering the market.

The authorities in charge don't do anything about it as long as you don't step on the wrong toes. If it looks like the insiders will be bankrupted they can have a "do over" like they did to the Hunt brothers. But if you stay within certain bounds you can pull anything you want.

The cabal is still trying to make the dollar look savory. Also, they want to make sure nobody has an easy escape route but themselves.

As someone else said on here before, it's not good enough to the owners that they win, everyone else has to lose big time for them to feel good about it. I just wonder how long this pot can boil before it boils over.

You would be surprised as to how long it can boil. They have an endless supply of paper to pull out of their asses. It will only come apart when another gang (one with a penchant for sharkfin and bullion) calls them on their shit. Till then its game on. In the meantime I find that vaseline makes things more bearable.

What's frightening is what WILL happen if and when the 'Bugs' decide to sell their phyzzzzzz. That could happen when the Metals are riding ridiculously high, or it could happen once enough stackers cut and run with the price going in the opposite direction to where they NEED it to be. Not everyone who owns precious metals has bottomless pockets, or the time to sit it out.

Its on sale right now. The only question in my mind from a chart perspective is, Does this pig make a higher low?

Given the evidence of market manipulation do you really give a shit if your already pushing tripple digit gains from buying the panty gusset penny stocks 6 months ago and coverting it into unfuckable physical??

Every time my mind plays a trick on me and says you should have waited for $1100 instead of $1300 in April. I answer back to myself , the extra 10 ounces I would have been able to purchase @$1100 is not worth the risk of delivery if the timing turns catastrophic. I consider it insurance to have in hand and lost at sea. So I am no longer concerned about paper prices. (Although I am concerned that I talk to myself so much )

There will be a time when we can reap some rewards from owning PMs, but now is not the time with all the manipulation going on. I look at it today as a means of wealth presevation. In the future I will be looking to make a profit when the SHTF.

Messed up.!
How would you feel if you got pummeled around the head by Bernanke, while your hands were tied behind your back and the police looked the other way?;-)
Like KITCO feels at he moment, I guess. They can be forgiven for thinking it is still August 14.

kitco is part of the rigging scam. IMO the kitco live chart has embedded price signals, that the collective group of cartel traders, and their computers, are programmed to pick up and run with. the delays, price lag, spikes, are a language, written for the insiders.

It is not just the BIS behind this. It is the international banking elite, the politicians and the reserve banks of this world.
The trade is in paper, and the contracts are future contracts.
It will work for a time when there is enough paper contracts to sell and the price is in decline.
When that turns, expect to be told, "sorry, no physical, only cash settlements" in depreciated dollars at artificially low prices.
At the moment over fifty claims for each ounce physical available.
I don't think these raids nets much in terms of gold, and it is bound to fail in the longer run.
Just buy your coin every month. And be happy gold is on sale at the moment.!

I don't think they will actually sacrifice the integrity of the commodity exchanges. I thought about it. For a while it suited them to scare people into believing that. There will be more rip offs, no doubt. But the whole MF Global fiasco caused real damage that they probably don't want to repeat. The exchanges are too useful to the authorities to allow a side economy to develop which does not use them. MF Global was pretty much the switch from paper to phsycial. Now they are stuck scrambling to come up with metal and nothing is working. If that starts happening with food, they will lose control of the paying farmers subsidies to take losses on the market dymanic. That will be the end of visibly cheap food. I suspect the lack of metal available in the markets will actually force the prices higher. They don't subsidize miners. They can't take the integrity hit. They need to show people the casino is winnable and gold is safe one for them to let run and dam well underpriced. Plus they kinda need it higher if they want to get serious about fixing the currency issue by advertising the ability of an asset backing.

I certainly agree with the first part of your post, the last part..not so much. You forget India and Russia have been accumulating gold as well. I don't think Middle Eastern countries mind geting a few tons too. Maybe gold "becomes" worthless in western civilizations, but I think it is a stretch to say completely worthless worldwide.

Not sure a deflationary collapse will bring about social revolution much faster than an inflationary one, since a deflationary collapse would make things cheaper EBT cards would go a lot further down at Walmart. Whereas hyperinflation those plebs couldnt even afford a bottle of cheese in a can.

Deflation scares the fuck out of the banksters because the plebs would actually get a real return on their savings even with ZIRP.

Deflation scares the fuck out of the banksters because the plebs would actually get a real return on their savings even with ZIRP.

Exactly! and the same applies with gold when it increases in value. That means nobody needs the fucking banks, there is no "return" that can be taxed, and the bankers revert to being the traders of letters of credit. One pillar of state repression broken. The state, in it's current form, will not be able to support itself, and people can throw off their bloodsucking politicians.
That's what this is ultimately about, and that is why we can't let them get away with business as usual.
Buy physical gold, just one coin each, and they are finished!

You never seem to run out of frighteningly bearish scenarios for gold and silver. I often wonder the motivation of folks like you who apparently hate gold and silver, yet follow the metals, and any metals articles, religiously, always posting negative opinions. I can understand, although I have the same opinion of, the people who cheer the metals no matter what the price direction. Something odd about longs who continually cheer lower and lower prices. Oh well, back to my gardening.

The real trump is India. They'll don't sell until they have to buy rice with it, so even if the Chinese sell they won't be selling it back across the Pacific, they'll be selling it just across the Himalayas.

Russia is a sworn enemy of the US (despite Glasnost etc etc) as well as China, so two enemies taken out in one chess game.India and the others get caught in the cross-fire and then some in friendly fire too, but that happens when a war is going on.

US hoovers up all the 'cheap' excess Gold and Silver, then revalues the Dollar. Check mate.

We can all bullshit ourselves with this paper vs. physical stuff, but fact is: Money is money and gold is gold. You can't go to wallmart or anywhere else and buy a can of beans with gold, no, you have to exchange it for money. Gold may be a preserver of value, but when you need frn's to buy toiletpaper, you need money or even credit. Comex sets the price for what you can trade gold for, paper or physical that is the price. Pretty elementary. Geez!

Bogus argument. Only a fool invests such a high percentage of his assets in PM's that these manipulations force him to sell at market lows. PM's are not an investment but a long term insurance policy. Farber's got that right. There may come a time in the coming decade however when people buy and sell in PM's. After the NWO crashes all the major currencies, if they can't get the sheeple of our planet to accept a global IMF SDR digital currency, that would be the logical outcome. I re-read Huckleberry Finn recently, Mark Twain's masterpiece, which took place roughly about 1845, and the use of PM coins was then the rule. Huck's ace in the hole was a $20 gold piece. History rhymes.

Im not even American but the smart money would be looking into what tit has just run dry and be placing their bets accordingly. Id wager John Kerrys jaw would snap if he got punched by Kimbo Slice and I would also wager that my piss would never be able to extinguish the flames if he was on fire, anywhere....

If I owned alot of gold and I mean if the current sell order represented 1% of my holdings and I had a lot of dollars to get rid of which you know may tank in value anytime soon according to the charts. I would put in a sell order then sweep up on the drop and then buy back in slowly whilst everyone else is in shock. The marginal loss is minimal.

what does a billion dollars buy? 800,000oz.... then demand delivery. If you lose 3.5% of your dollar value, so what? as long as you own gold which in a year from now may well surpass $2,000. Interesting times.

If your pockets are deep enough in the short term then you're going to be sitting on a huge uplift..................if ever you decided to sell.

So who owns a lot of gold and has a lot of dollars that they need to wash through the system? The seller is the buyer in my opinion.

What if someone had all the bid info near the current price, as well as the stops for people who went long.

Imagine the following simplified (and not realistic, but I'm trying to make a point) market structure. If an algo detected this, they could guarantee profits by selling short all the bids, and use the stops from the longs who purchased, to cover. They would take a loss on the lowest bid as that would be below the stops, but that would trigger the stops whereby they would cover at an overall profit.

I think the reason why a regulator has not done anything about it is because I think it is legal. The US has said it has the right to sell or buy any security or commodity if it feels it is necisary. It is in a war with Gold/silver and would and could do so.

The way I understand it, gold and silver are manipulated legally by the ESF for the U.S. govenment, with cooperation from the BIS and other central banks, through their "trading partners" JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, etc. under the long-standing Gold Reserve Act.

Thus, the CFTC or any other entity has no legal grounds to make any decision against any of these parties whatsoever regarding illegal manipulation.

In my judgement, these examples of slamming the price of precious metals down are no longer intended as a strategic defense of the dollar --as it no doubt once was. Note that, as large as the number of contracts/ounces are that are involved, the price still bobs right back up, thus indicating the presence of equally large buyers. Many probably just vaguely assume that a large host of random traders are behind these buying binges --not to mention the usual suspects themselves who are involved in slamming the price down by short selling in the first place, purely for the sake of cash profits. The rising response is just too fast, almost like a 'flash purchase.' I conclude therefore, that all this is --primarily-- much more symptomatic of a system that is now primarily engaged in massive, pre-arranged sales.

This is not so straight-forward as, say, some eastern central bank like China's stepping in via proxies to buy, after bribing the appropriate, non-aligned "Americans." The western bullion banks themselves, now desperately hungry for cash, are no doubt looting their own vaults to take advantage of the carry-trade price differential growing between East and West. By the time the dollar truly collapses (and soon) and the West's population --particularly here in the US-- finally panics into precious metals, the greater bulk of the country's gold will already have been vacuumed up and whisked away. In fact, it's my belief that a dollar collapse will not even be allowed --due to this criminal collusion between East and West-- until this suspiciously treasonous process has been completed.

We are apparently destined to become a third-world nation overnight, with very little leverage on the world stage for years to come, until we can re-industrialize.

The CME data has been interesting since it's shown a major slowing in gold leaving warehouses. I don't buy it -- there must be some cash settlement happening or buyers are going outside CME to get it now.

The owners already have all the money in the world. They just pull a little more out of their asses and lend it to us at compounding interest. While the upper middle management like Dimon and Bankfiend may be interested in personally feathering their nests and egos, the dudes at the top of the pyramid who hang out with the All Seeing Eye are far more interested in extracting money from the 99%, making them desperate enough for access to staples that they will allow themselves to be totally controlled and zombified. The reason that the kings and priests in the ancient Levant, starting with Sumer, had periodic Jubilees was that the peasants eventually got pissed off enough being forced to sell their children into slavery and prostitution to pay off the interest on their debts, that they got together and pulled out their pitchforks. Money is just a tool of the owners to organize the behavior of us farm animals from their Olympian heights without getting their hands too dirty. No point to invest it with mystical and mythical properties.